Some great news announced overnight…

• Starting October 1, 2009, a PIC License will no longer be required for federation with American Online (AOL).  Customers qualify for federation with AOL if they have Office Communications Server 2007 R2 Standard CAL or active Software Assurance on their current LCS/OCS license.
• Microsoft is  also releasing the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway at no additional licensing cost that allows basic Presence sharing and instant messaging (IM) with XMPP (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) networks Jabber and Google Talk. For Office Communications Server customers, this means Jabber and GoogleTalk users can now be part of Office Communications Server IM contacts.

Starting today, the Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007 R2 XMPP Gateway can be downloaded here, while a video that explains how the Gateway works can be viewed here.

Read the press release and an interview with Eric Swift at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/features/2009/oct09/10-01ucinterop.mspx